"We knew we had a Russian agent on our hands." Top NSA official said - about Trump.

[MelissaB]

This is an important article, and I highly recommend reading it all.

Here’s How the FBI Investigation Into Russia and Trump Campaign Actually Started

By John R. Schindler • 05/28/18 9:50am

... snip

As the Guardian tactfully phrased the matter, “GCHQ was at no point carrying out a targeted operation against Trump or his team or proactively seeking information. The alleged conversations were picked up by chance as part of routine surveillance of Russian intelligence assets. Over several months, different agencies targeting the same people began to see a pattern of connections that were flagged to intelligence officials in the U.S.” In other words, Western intelligence agencies that were eavesdropping on the Kremlin and its spies—not Trump or any of his retinue—heard numerous conversations about Trump and his secret Russian connections. As I’ve told you previously, senior Kremlin officials got very chatty about Trump beginning in late 2014, on the heels of his infamous Moscow trip, and NSA knew about this.

In truth, NSA understood quite a bit about Trump’s connections to Moscow, and by mid-2016 it had increased its efforts to get to the bottom of the mystery regarding the candidate’s Russian ties. In response to urgent FBI requests for more information, NSA rose to the occasion, and by the time that Donald Trump officially accepted the Republican nomination in mid-July 2016, “We knew we had a Russian agent on our hands,” as a senior NSA official put it to me recently.

The official went on: “We had several reports in late 2015 and early 2016, mostly from Second and Third Party”—that being spy-speak for NSA’s foreign friends—“but by the spring of 2016 we had plenty of our own collection.” These reports, based on multiple intercepts, were tightly compartmented, that is, restricted to a small group of counterintelligence officials, given their obvious sensitivity, but they painted an indelible picture of a compromised GOP nominee. “The Kremlin talked about Trump like he was their boy, and their comments weren’t always flattering.” The NSA official stated that those above-top-secret reports left no doubt that the Russians were subverting our democracy in 2016—and that Team Trump was a witting participant in the Kremlin’s criminal conspiracy: “Trump and his kids knew what they were doing, and who they were doing it with,” the official explained.

This information helps explain why James Clapper, our country’s most experienced spy-boss, recently amplified his previous statement that our president was Vladimir Putin’s “asset” by explaining that he has “no doubt” that Russian spies “swung the election to a Trump win.” This weekend, Clapper stated that he was “absolutely” unaware of the FBI’s use of informants to gain information about the Trump campaign in 2016. Tellingly, Clapper said nothing about top-secret-plus intelligence which might have spurred the Bureau to rustle up some informants in this case—and, like any veteran spook with a half-century in the spy business, Clapper isn’t likely to blab about high-grade SIGINT anytime soon, particularly when it implicates the president in espionage and worse.


More: http://observer.com/2018/05/what-did-the-fbi-do-in-2016-about-russian-connections-to-donald-trump/

EXCLUSIVE: The start of the FBI's 2016 CI investigation of Team Trump had nothing to do with dossiers, informants, or "spies." Those are lies. It began with TS+ SIGINT proving Trump's secret ties to Putin & his Kremlin

Link to tweet

[MelissaB]

1. An important reminder

In the early 1950s, the US public & MSM had no idea -- no inkling whatsoever -- that FBI & NSA knew the full extent of Kremlin espionage in the USA, thanks to VENONA, and US CI was rolling those spies up, one by one. TS+ facts, though hidden, are devastating. History repeats.- John Schindler

I didn't know about VENONA until I started following John and he mentioned it. Off to google I went and was floored.

[murielm99]

17. I started learning about Venona when

I read books about the Rosenbergs.

[Iliyah]

2. WTF . . . . .

And the Republican party is still silent. Oh wait, they are apart of it.

[triron]

5. MSM is complicit.

[woodsprite]

8. If the NYPD and the NY FBI knew about him, then they're complicit as well. n/t

[Bernardo de La Paz]

37. Mainstream media is complicit by profit motive, NOT by collusion. . . . nt

[arthritisR_US]

56. An important distinction however the end result

is the same. History will nonetheless judge them poorly.

[keithbvadu2]

19. 'apart' or 'a part' - different meanings.

Complicit or trying to deny complicity?

Both seem plausible in this case.

[lagomorph777]

71. Yet Comey kept it quiet; "afraid to influence the election"

...even though the election absolutely SHOULD have been influenced. What a disgrace.

[MelissaB]

3. Mueller knows everything.

How many times have @TheRickWilson and I told you: Mueller knows everything. For the first time, here's more than a hint of what he and the FBI know about Trump and the Russians, thanks to above-top-secret electronic intercepts..

Link to tweet

[triron]

26. "The Truth is out there."

[Kirk Lover]

4. I can see them wanting to keep the "real" reason under wraps. You don't want the subjects to

get wind. Right????

[Volaris]

20. From what I've read here, the sentence you're looking for is as follows:

You don't want the the target getting buggy.
But yeah basically heh
Want to keep the bombing run quiet-like until after the payload has been released. It's what makes me think there a whole slew of indictments under seal with the Grand Jury. Mueller ain't no Fool.

[SharonClark]

6. Thank you for posting this article.

[Shanti Mama]

7. Ditto Sharon Clark. This is why I come to DU every day.

Thanks so much. Please keep these important pieces coming.

[MineralMan]

9. Why would a top NSA official talk to John Schindler?

Here's the answer: That would not happen. Period.

I call bullshit on Schindler's quotes from that so-called source. Top NSA officials don't talk to people like Schindler about anything. Not a freaking chance. Not if they like their jobs, anyhow.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

10. Schindler used to work for the NSA so he might have some contacts.

However, he's controversial, to say the least, so who knows if his comments are accurate or just made-up bullshit like Louise Mensch's stuff?

[MineralMan]

13. He USED to work there. So did I. Once you don't work there, though,

it's a very serious criminal act if someone who still does work there tells you classified things. No "high NSA official" would ever disclose Top Secret compartmented information to a former NSA employee. Not a chance. Truly.

Schindler is talking out of his ass. He may have a strong idea of what's going on, but he doesn't have any sources who are "high NSA officials." I guarantee that. And if he somehow did have such sources, he would never refer to them, even without identifying them. It just doesn't work that way.

I consider Schindler to be an unreliable source, simply because he lies about sources, as he did in that Guardian article. He has no such sources inside the NSA. He is no longer working at the NSA. That means nobody who is would ever make statements like that to him. Never. In fact, if a "high NSA official" did make such statements, that official would be found and would face prosecution. There are lists of everyone who has even viewed Top Secret information and higher of that kind. It would be easy to find out who was spilling the beans to Schindler. Therefore, nobody did that. Nobody would, because they know they'd get caught if they talked to a blabbermouth like him.

Bad source.

[Hekate]

14. Thank you

Sometimes it's difficult living in the reality based world...

[MineralMan]

15. Of course, what I wrote will just be dismissed by those who

want to believe Schindler. Oh, well...it doesn't really matter, I suppose.

We've seen so much nonsense from those random tweeters who pretend to be knowledgeable. They all seem to have these "unnamed sources" in high places. Most are made up out of whole cloth, though. Still, it's easy to fool some people if you say things they want to hear. Plus, if their speculations turn out to be accurate 5% of the time, people will think they're always accurate.

Sometimes, it's difficult to watch what's going on.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

22. It is bizarre, Mineral to observe the spin....

that these stories get when I look at the follow-up Twitter threads. Dozens of people pile on and hurrah the tale, as if it were chiseled into the granite of the Lincoln Memorial. No one asks for verification, which he could not do anyway by claiming a confidential source.

People like Schindler get lucky and are right about something from time to time, but so are dead clocks. That's all it takes to reel in a few hundred suckers on social media.

It's no wonder America is so screwed up........

[MineralMan]

23. Confirmation bias. We're always ready to believe things if they

say what we wish to be true. I have no solution for that problem. I don't think there is one.

I'm skeptical of all self-proclaimed "pundits." I'm skeptical of unnamed sources saying things it's very unlikely they'd say, too.

My point of view is unpopular with those who want their hopes to be facts.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

49. "What we wish to be true" says it all.

Like dreams and aspirations, I suppose and all part of being human. But as a scientist, some of that is difficult to accept when applied to the well-being and future of our nation. I too am a natural skeptic and our voice needs to be heard.

I only read some of the better Twitter pages on my computer. It's a good thing I've never signed up for Twitter or Facebook because I would be trying to battle the bullshit and bots all day long. At my age, I don't need those battles.

........

[sharedvalues]

53. Susan Rice thinks Schindler is worth listening to

Link to tweet

?s=20



Susan Rice. Obama’s national security Advisor.


Look. Mensch and Laufer and Garland and the rest you can take or leave.

But Schindler is worth reading. He’s got a reasonable background.

[Maeve]

62. Well, I want to believe him, but....

I have a longer history of trusting you, MM, so....and I've long gotten past accepting Disney lyrics as fact.

"No matter how your heart is grieving,
If you keep on believing,
The dream that you wish will come true"

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

18. OK, then. Off he goes to the Louise Mensch - Claude Taylor dungeon.

[uponit7771]

21. It's not top secret that Red Don and his kids were talking to the Russians or that the Russians

... wanted Benedict Donald to be president.

[MineralMan]

24. i'm talking about his "quote" from a "high NSA official."

I think I made that pretty clear. I don't trust anything Schindler writes. He too often quotes people who would never say what he quotes them as saying. This is one such case.

[MelissaB]

41. That's your opinion.

You don't know.

[MineralMan]

43. Of course it's my opinion.

See my signature line. It is, however, an informed opinion.

[MelissaB]

46. Yes, and I'll believe the opinion of someone who uses his actual name

on social media and writes for The Guardian over some anon dude on the internet.

I don't know about the informed. Maybe, maybe not.

[MineralMan]

47. OK...

[radical noodle]

59. I think I'll listen to you, MineralMan

You are usually the voice of reason around here. Shindler can make "educated" guesses about what's going on and make those in quotes from unnamed sources. He could very well be right without being truthful. It's not all or nothing, folks.

We should file this in our "hope it's true" part of our brains and carry on with the business of electing Dems.

[MineralMan]

68. Thanks, but please realize that I'm just offering my opinion,

as always. For all I know, Schindler might be correct in his assessment, but it's highly doubtful that any current high NSA official said what was quoted. It's just not done.

[radical noodle]

70. Yes I know

and I agree that he might be correct but I'll not count on it until I see it in the Washington Post.

[alfredo]

33. I worked for the "green NSA" The ASA.

The thought of speaking about what I experienced, even if Long since declassified, makes my stomach all queasy.

Yesterday someone brought up the USS Liberty, it still brings up anger and sadness. It’s been a dark cloud over me all day. I’d rather not think about it.

I don’t see any high ranking NSA official willing to talk shop. It’s not part of our culture.

[sharedvalues]

54. This is a crazy era. Our country was attacked.

Sipher, Clapper, Hayden, and other top intel officials are speaking out. Yes it’s crazy. Totally crazy.
But with a president acting like a Russian asset, known interference in elections, and a complicit Congress, retired officials seem to feel like they need to do something.


Ps on the uss liberty

https://www.google.com/amp/observer.com/2017/06/50-years-ago-nsa-israel-attack-uss-liberty/amp/

[reACTIONary]

51. +10 ....

.... you ate right.

[sharedvalues]

52. Schindler goes to security confs with high level officials

Schindler speaks at international security conferences.

https://lmc.icds.ee/article/schindler-trumps-downfall-is-coming/

Schindler had a high level NSA position on the Balkans. He has connections with other intel services, not just Americans.

An NSA official saying “We knew we were dealing with a Russian agent”, without commenting on the provenance of the info or giving details, isn’t beyond the realm of possibility.

We are living in a time when ex senior CIA and FBI agents are going public with their concerns about the president. Because they are worried about the country.
Look:
John Sipher: ex CIA Moscow Chief of Station
Michael Hayden: ex CIA and NSA chief
Chris Steele: ex head of Russia desk, MI6
James Clapper: ex Director of Natl Intel


All of these guys have almost said what Schindler reports - in public. Clapper said “Russia is treating Trump like an asset”. This guy knew the deepest NSA secrets.



So it is 100% plausible that Schindler would have access to this info.

Schindler deserves credit for getting a lot of stuff right on Russia, WAY before 2016.

[brush]

65. Thanks for this input. It helps with our perspective on Schindler.

Love the use of "blabbermouth". Haven't heard that word in a while.

[MineralMan]

67. I love colorful old words.

I try to resurrect them from time to time.

[pnwmom]

29. Why would Mark Felt, Deep Throated Assoc. Dir. of the FBI, leak to Bob Woodward, a cub reporter

for the WA Post?

Clearly he was risking his job. And clearly he thought it was worth it.

[MineralMan]

30. Good point. However, I do not consider Schindler to be in any way

equivalent to Woodward. Not even close.

[pnwmom]

32. What were Bob Woodward's qualifications at the time?

He had 1 year and 9 months experience in the newspaper business (only 9 months at the Post) before he happened to meet Mark Felt. But Felt trusted him, or he was desperate, or he first acted on impulse and then kept going -- we'll never know.

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/columns/how-an-unlikely-pair-woodward-and-bernstein-broke-watergate/

[MineralMan]

63. He had editors and fact-checkers. He worked for a legitimate

publication. The Guardian is not such a publication, I'm afraid. Their publication of Glenn Greenwald's nonsense is proof of that. Of course, if you think Glenn Greenwald is a legitimate journalist, you might disagree with me.

[pnwmom]

73. Since 2014 the Intercept publishes Greenwald. The Guardian is a well regarded British publisher

that uses editors, fact checkers, and multiple sources.

Prior to the Intercept Greenwald had an opinion column at the Guardian. But being a lawyer with an opinion column isn't the same as being a reporter. Many publishers have opinion writers who don't share their point of view. And the opinion pieces of Glenn Greenwald before he left the Guardian have nothing to do with the work of the reporters who wrote the 2015 and 2016 pieces on Donald Trump.


https://www.theguardian.com/profile/glenn-greenwald

Glenn Greenwald is a former columnist on civil liberties and US national security issues for the Guardian. An ex-constitutional lawyer, he was until 2012 a contributing writer at Salon. He is the author of How Would a Patriot Act? (May 2006), acritique of the Bush administration's use of executive power; A Tragic Legacy (June, 2007), which examines the Bush legacy; and With Liberty and Justice For Some: How the Law Is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful

[MineralMan]

74. Whatever you say...

[pnwmom]

75. The Guardian was also the only British publisher not to jump on the bandwagon

against Amanda Knox, when she was being falsely prosecuted. I noticed their reporting then and have paid attention to them since. They're a responsible publisher, despite their having once given column space to Glenn Greenwald.

[MineralMan]

76. Clearly, I disagree.

[pnwmom]

82. Other than giving column space to an opinion writer, what of their publishing

do you think has been irresponsible?

[MineralMan]

85. I have nothing more to add.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

38. Do you really think Obama planted a spy in Trump's campaign or do you think NSA picked up Russian

... Russian phone calls to Russians, talking about tRump?

Everything in the OP fits with known facts. I'm sure that in time it will be confirmed officially.

[triron]

42. I'm with you.

[OverBurn]

11. How the F was he even allowed to become a candidate?

[FakeNoose]

40. Exactly that! If the GOP had spent even 5 minutes vetting their candidate

... none of this would have ever happened. Cheeto would be filed in the dead-meat file.
Hillary would have beaten whatever lame-o candidate they put up because Putin wouldn't have gotten involved.

[stuffmatters]

44. The GOP has deep $ & ideological ties to Putin itself; "vetting" Trump counterproductive to them

[lagomorph777]

72. One example would be #NRAROUBLES

You are right the RePutin Party has been in bed with Putin for a long time.

[catrose]

55. And if 16 intelligence agencies knew this before the election

why didn't somebody say something? Heck, why didn't somebody leak something? Instead we have but-her-emails from Comey and NYT speculating about what the Clinton foundation COULD have done (when there was a much-more obvious Trump Foundation that had never done anything, unless it was break a law).

[superpatriotman]

12. This passage screams at me!

"Australia, Germany, Estonia, and Poland all had SIGINT hits that indicated a troubling relationship between Trump and Moscow. So, too, did the French and the Dutch—the latter being an especially savvy SIGINT partner of NSA’s."

[marylandblue]

16. This is something I've suspected since the beginning

Actually it's fairly obvious they would have this intel as soon as the first rumors of connections between Trump and Russia surfaced. We routinely monitor Russian communications, and so do all the allies we share information with. It wouldn't be possible for Trump to have any significant cooperation with Russia without NSA knowing about it.

[triron]

25. Thanks MelissaB.

If true this is very damning.

[awesomerwb1]

27. Take Schindler with a massive grain of salt. nt

[marylandblue]

34. He's working off an old Guardian report

So the basic info about British Intelligence picking up signals is probably correct. But I don't trust anything he says he got from his own contacts.


https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/apr/13/british-spies-first-to-spot-trump-team-links-russia

[Bernardo de La Paz]

39. The alternate story is tRump's. I know who I trust more than the other.

It all fits with known facts.

[stubtoe]

28. I need to know exactly why his candidacy was allowed to go forward.

n/t

[MRDAWG]

31. Russians are subverting our nation through their agent Trump. He is.......

attacking our FBI etc.

[triron]

35. knr

[Westcoast52]

36. Are We Playing "What Is Truth' With A Serial Liar In The White House?

This discussion is very important to us all because our nation is in danger. I believe everyone here is a concerned citizen with no ulterior motive in presenting what they have to share. Anything sourced about intelligence agencies runs the risk of being disinformation or not accurate. If James Clapper and Michael Hayden start saying alarming things about Trump and the election, I don't have to buy what they say either. Fake news? What is MY infallible standard? Shall we play the Rumsfeld game of 'known knowns' and 'unknown knowns'? Does a serial liar ultimately decide the truth by force of will? Do the intelligence agencies chuck the Presidential Daily Briefing process if Trump thinks it's all crap? Is sharing ultra-secret Israeli source information with Russians visiting the White House not a crime if the President does it? Trump maintains power by poking holes in the credibility of everyone around him. The press and people are constantly second-guessing themselves to avoid discredit. I can't say that because I knew a hotdog vendor (not) near Langley that the agency operates this way or that from what his customers said. In desperate times, telling the truth via second-hand rumor may work as well as anything else. Whatever we believe about sourcing, Trump is waging a 'looking glass war' on the very fabric of reality. If he wins, ????

[bucolic_frolic]

45. If they knew why didn't they do something about it

other than warning the candidate and his closest advisors who were in on it?

Why didn't they warn the GOP earlier, in the early primaries?

It's not sufficient to say he couldn't win, or they didn't think he could win.

The far left has been filtered out from Debs to Dukakis. Why did they let this happen?

[OliverQ]

79. So why didn't they stop him before he won and started destroying the country?

[bucolic_frolic]

80. It's not clear if you're asking

a question or summarizing the implications of my post.

I just think there was a time when party leaders were sensitive to national security type angles. They might not have pulled the plug on his campaign, but not cooperated as much for example. Both parties have had candidates they were lukewarm about for many reasons. Trump caused a split in his party, the opposition was vocal and remains so. But they held no sway.

[barbtries]

48. i don't think he's the only one.

how many republicans in congress are compromised? i just can't come up with a reasonable answer to why they let this travesty go on, violate their oaths of office, and now are fleeing office in record numbers.

[triron]

50. kick for visibility

[Scurrilous]

57. K&R

[triron]

58. kick again

[SergeStorms]

60. Too long for a "tweet".

Therefore many Americans will never be exposed to the truth. Trump has ushered in the "tweet" age, and everyone has suffered for it. If it can't be reduced to "tweetable" length, it can't possibly be newsworthy.

[Botany]

61. We have a Russian Agent in the White House.

Trump’s aggressive propaganda against any public airing of his secret Kremlin ties has taken many mendacious forms since his inauguration. In early 2017, the president claimed that he had been “wiretapped.” When that lie (which, coincidentally or not, was of Russian origin) fell apart, he tried out the accusation that members of his campaign had been improperly “unmasked” in top-secret intelligence documents. That lie likewise withered away under its own dishonesty, so now the White House insists it was “spied” on illegally by the FBI. This noxious myth is slowly dying as well outside the feverish swamps of Trump bitter-enders—as it deserves to.

snip


This information helps explain why James Clapper, our country’s most experienced spy-boss, recently amplified his previous statement that our president was Vladimir Putin’s “asset” by explaining that he has “no doubt” that Russian spies “swung the election to a Trump win.” This weekend, Clapper stated that he was “absolutely” unaware of the FBI’s use of informants to gain information about the Trump campaign in 2016. Tellingly, Clapper said nothing about top-secret-plus intelligence which might have spurred the Bureau to rustle up some informants in this case—and, like any veteran spook with a half-century in the spy business, Clapper isn’t likely to blab about high-grade SIGINT anytime soon, particularly when it implicates the president in espionage and worse.


http://observer.com/2018/05/what-did-the-fbi-do-in-2016-about-russian-connections-to-donald-trump/

[malthaussen]

64. And none of this is admissable...

... since the specifics are all classified.

-- Mal

[scarytomcat]

66. so why wasn't something said before asshole stole the WH

I don't understand how this happened and we have no solution
Impeach trump and we get pence this ain't right

[nolabels]

69. Just to be a little current in this forum at this point in time can we have a ...........

No Shit Sherlock

[saidsimplesimon]

77. So, my fears have

been confirmed, we have a Russian mole in our WH.

[cbdo2007]

78. If this is true then the entire system is completely broken...

They had all of these suspicions and probably were recording evidence....

....yet he still won the presidency and is making major policy decisions.

What is stopping Trump from changing the constitution and just having Putin as our new President?

This is like there being a bank robbery and clearly have the person on video and know for sure who it is...yet waiting 5 years to arrest them. What is the point???

[triron]

83. +1000

[Blue_Tires]

81. k+r

[Gothmog]

84. Trump is putin's puppet

[triron]

86. knr